IRAQ: 'RULES OF ENGAGEMENT THROWN OUT THE WINDOW'

Do many people know what the ROE are? They are the "Rules of Engagement" and they are printed on a little card you carry in the breast pocket of your fatigues. And that is where it stays....at least in Iraq.

The ROE is kind of like General Orders in the military. The General Orders state you are not supposed to leave your post. Makes sense. But like the Rules of Engagement, the General Orders can get a little muddied up in the heat of battle.

You may not abandon your post until relieved, but if your position is being overrun by the enemy you sure as hell aren't going to stand there and be slaughtered. The same goes for the Rules of Engagement in a war like the Iraq war where you can't tell the good guys from the bad guys.

You are instructed not to kill innocent civilians, but sometimes an innocent civilian can turn into a deadly killer in the blink of an eye.

Forget about the ROE, or Rules of Engagement in Iraq. ROE should be changed to CYA, and I think everyone knows what CYA stands for.

Commentary by Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE, and a former Squad Leader with the United States Army Combat Engineers and a Korean War veteran.

Iraq: 'Rules of Engagement Thrown out the Window'

By Dahr Jamail, IPS NewsPosted on March 16, 2008, Printed on March 16, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/story/79878/

Garret Reppenhagen received integral training about the Geneva Conventions and the Rules of Engagement during his deployment in Kosovo. But in Iraq, "Much of this was thrown out the window," he says.

"The men I served with are professionals," Reppenhagen told the audience at a panel of U.S. veterans speaking of their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, "They went to Iraq to defend the U.S. But we found rapidly we were killing Iraqis in horrible ways. But we had to in order to remain safe ourselves. The war is the atrocity."
The event, which has drawn international media attention, was organised by Iraq Veterans Against the War. It aims to show that their stories of wrongdoing in both countries were not isolated incidents limited to a few "bad apples", as the Pentagon claims, but were everyday occurrences.
The panel on the "Rules of Engagement" (ROE) during the first full day of the gathering, named "Winter Soldier" to honour a similar gathering 30 years ago of veterans of the Vietnam War, was held in front of a visibly moved audience of several hundred, including veterans from Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam. Winter soldiers, according to U.S. founding father Thomas Paine, are the people who stand up for the soul of their country, even in its darkest hours
Reppenhagen served in Iraq from February 2004-2005 in the city of Baquba, 40 kms northeast of Baghdad. He said his first experience in Iraq was being on a patrol that killed two Iraqi farmers as they worked in their field at night.

"I was told they were out in the fields farming because their pumps only operated with electricity, which meant they had to go out in the dark when there was electricity," he explained, "I asked the sergeant, if he knew this, why did he fire on the men. He told me because the men were out after curfew. I was never given another ROE during my time in Iraq."

Click on link above to read Dahr Jamail's full story.